


Voyagers of an Approaching Past

by astralelegies



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Warehouse 13
Genre: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, F/F, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4308429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralelegies/pseuds/astralelegies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Warehouse team comes into contact with an unknown Artifact, they are thrown headfirst into New York City, 1946--and into a confrontation with Agent Peggy Carter and her associates. As the two disparate groups try and piece together what's happening, their separate timelines (and not a few hearts) grow increasingly convoluted. But when old enemies resurface and buried secrets are unearthed, the new allies begin to suspect these recent events may not be as random as they seem, and that the entire world may be in grave peril unless they can band together to save it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just when I’d started my first big crossover after extensive planning, the idea for this one popped into my brain, and I had to write it. (I’m like Howard Stark, I can’t control what I create.) Because I am really excited about both, updates may be infrequent, but if it’s been more than two weeks yell a reminder at me. Many thanks to [ TheRangress ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRangress/pseuds/TheRangress) for being my beta, and to [ this tumblr post ](http://tellany.tumblr.com/post/121601038612/warehouse-13-agent-carter-head-canons) for inspiration. Timeline-wise, the events in this fic take place at the beginning of season four (more or less between episodes two and three) for Warehouse 13 and immediately following season one for Agent Carter.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a classic snag-bag-tag operation doesn’t go quite as planned.

“Aaaand we’ve got a ping.” 

Claudia had been sitting at Artie’s desk for half an hour, mindlessly refreshing browser tabs under the pretense that she was actually doing something useful. She’d call it procrastination if there was anything to even procrastinate _on_ , but they hadn’t had a mission for nearly a week and she was getting antsy enough to try hacking into United Nations security codes like she’d always dreamed about. After all this time working for the Warehouse she still wasn’t entirely clear on the Regents’ policies regarding the breakage of international law, or rather, how much breakage of international law would be tolerated, and she’d figured it would be best not to risk it. A distraction had been necessary. 

Now, it seemed, her boredom was over.

“Do we really?” Artie eagerly looked up from the Farnsworth he’d been fiddling with. “What sort of ping?”

She rolled her eyes. “A ping-y ping. And don’t touch that, I’m not done upgrading it yet.”

“Claudia, I’ve told you time and time again about tinkering with Warehouse equipment—

“Yeah, yeah, grandpa, give it here.” 

He grudgingly handed it over and moved to inspect the computer screen. Skimming through it, his eyes landed on some particular piece of information and he froze.

“Claudia. Get Pete and Myka down here.”

“Artie, I’m not your personal assistant.”

“No, you’re my personal pain in the butt. Go get Pete and Myka.” 

Grumbling, Claudia did as he said. Her targets were cataloguing Artifacts in the Ovoid Quarantine with Jinksy when she found them, and as usual, they were in the midst of an argument. 

“Pete, you can’t just confiscate Gene Roddenberry’s Oxfords for your own personal use, it’s against Warehouse protocol.” Myka looked about as thoroughly exasperated as she’d ever been.

“Hey, I’m just saying, there’s a reason Captain Kirk was good with the ladies, and it’s all in the shoes of his creator.” 

_Not a sentence you hear every day_ , Claudia thought, but then again, extraordinary things were a very ordinary Warehouse occurrence. 

Myka made a face. “That doesn’t give you an excuse to use them.”

“Why not?” Pete’s eyes lit up with another idea that only he would think of. “We could totally use them for snagging other Artifacts. I could be, like, the male version of Mata Hari.” 

Myka threw her hands up and turned away, not bothering to dignify him with a response. 

“If you’ll stop fighting for two seconds you’ll remember that too much negative energy can trigger the Artifacts,” Steve broke in.

Claudia clapped him on the shoulder. “Yes, listen to Jinksy, he brings wise words of advice. Also, listen to me, I bring grouchy words in the form of a summons from Artie. Who would have been able to call you himself if you’d actually bothered to bring your super-cool, Claudia-improved Farnsworths.”

The three agents ahead of her shifted uncomfortably in a very familiar way.

“Pete, what did you do.” At this point it was a statement, not a question. 

Steve spoke for him. “He thought he heard a noise when we were checking up on the Dark Vault earlier so he dropped them and ran.”

“Then he refused to go back for them,” Myka added.

Claudia rolled her eyes. “Great. Well, much as I’d love to stand here and reprimand you, if I don’t deliver you to Artie soon it’s coming out of my woefully nonexistent payroll.” 

After re-sealing the Ovoid Quarantine they headed directly to his office. Claudia could tell he’d been pacing the room impatiently while awaiting their return. Jinksy had accompanied them, even though he hadn’t been expressly called for, but Artie seemed too preoccupied to mind. He cut right to the point. 

“A 1940s automat has materialized overnight in New York City.” 

“Not exactly the doomsday event I was expecting,” Claudia remarked, “Restaurants open all the time.” 

Artie shot her a look. “I don’t just mean it _opened_ , it literally appeared in a vacant lot out of thin air, according to several eyewitness accounts. The building, the materials, the interior—everything down to the last detail appears as if it’s sprung right out of a history book.”

“So someone’s got an eye for antiquities, I don’t see what’s so strange.”

“It’s more than that.” Myka was staring at Artie with that intense gaze she got when she was piecing things together. “You don’t think…it can’t really be an artifact for physical time travel, can it? You said that wasn’t possible.”

“Everything’s impossible until it isn’t.” Artie was pacing again. “It could be anything, maybe something that creates illusions or replicates past events, but I’m not taking any chances, and if it really is time travel….”

“That’s bad news,” Pete finished for him.

“Why bring Pete and Myka in specifically?” Jinksy asked. 

The two agents exchanged a glance. 

“We have…prior experience in the field,” Myka offered tentatively. 

“Wait. Don’t tell me you’ve time traveled before and never said anything about it.”

A few guilty looks. 

The thing was, there were reasons they’d never gotten around to telling Jinksy about Pete and Myka’s trip to the past, and those reasons began and ended with H.G. Wells. Myka wouldn’t say it out loud, but even now the history between the two of them hurt, and everyone saw it. Helena had worked with the team as a Warehouse agent once, and in spite of her trying to destroy the entire world, Claudia could tell Myka missed those days. It was Helena’s time machine that had enabled Pete and Myka to inhabit the bodies of 1960s Warehouse agents, and every time that particular adventure got brought up other memories came along with it. It didn’t help that after the whole Sykes debacle H.G. had up and vanished into thin air again, leaving them with no idea if she was even still alive. There was simply no sense in pouring salt into an open wound. 

“We can go into the details later,” Artie was saying, “right now, Pete and Myka need to get to New York.”

“Whoa there jumps-to-conclusions, I’m coming too,” Claudia declared. 

“No you’re not,” he shot back.

“But Artie, it’s _time travel_!”

“Yes, exactly, it’s time travel, and do you know what time travel is? Dangerous.”

“You said you didn’t even know for sure that’s what we’re dealing with.”

“Enough!” Artie pounded a fist on his desk. “Pete and Myka are going in because they are the only ones who have some form of firsthand experience in this area, and that’s final. Understood?”

Claudia sighed. “Understood.”

Half an hour later, Pete and Myka were headed to the airport, Artie was muttering about something in his office, and Claudia had been relegated to inventory duty with Steve. Being stuck here while her friends got to go off in search of an Artifact wasn’t remotely fair, so as soon as she was sure the senior Warehouse agent wasn’t monitoring them, she pulled Steve into the Curie Aisle for an aside.

“Jinksy. I have a plan.”

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

“We are going to sneak out to New York so we can help Pete and Myka.” 

Jinksy blinked. “No.”

“But it’s—

“Yes, I know, Claude, it’s time travel, but Pete and Myka can handle themselves and if we go anywhere near them Artie will kill us.”

Claudia folded her arms defiantly. “He can’t kill a dead man, Jinksy.” 

That shut him up. When she’d brought her best friend back from the dead using Johann Maelzel’s metronome, she’d thought everything would feel out of the ordinary, but it didn’t, not exactly, and that was what had made things so unusual lately. Sometimes, she would share a joke with Steve and he’d roll his eyes and elbow her in the ribs and she’d forget for a moment that not so very long ago it had seemed likely she’d never see him again. But then someone would say something like “I’d die for one of Leena’s apple pies right now” and it would all come rushing back. 

“Artie’s right, you know.” Steve could be annoyingly practical at times. “It’s dangerous. I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“And I don’t want you getting hurt either. I lost you once and I’m not going to let it happen again. But don’t stand there and pretend you’re not curious about where this might go.” 

She could tell he was, but he just turned his back on her. Claudia began singing “Steve Jinks is a poopy pants” under her breath to the tune of the theme from _Star Wars_ until he relented. 

“Fine,” he said, “but you’d better know exactly what you’re doing.”

She grinned at him. “Oh ye of little faith. Just follow my lead.” 

\---- 

Not for the first time in her life, Myka Bering found herself gazing at something that was, if not entirely inconceivable, then at least highly improbable. She could see why Artie had suspected this was the result of a time-travel Artifact. He might not be as old as Claudia liked to claim, but when he was younger he’d probably visited automats not much different from the one in front of her, and would know if something was missing as a result of modern historical inaccuracy. As far as Myka could tell, it was perfect. 

The design didn’t just appear authentic. She and Pete had inspected it top to bottom and it looked like it really had come from the 1940s. All of the technology was certainly right for the era, and some of the building materials were illegal by today’s safety standards. If someone had used an Artifact to somehow create a replica of an old cultural landmark, for whatever bizarre and obscure reason, it would’ve been impractical to leave it with the inefficiencies of bygone machinery. 

Then there was the location. Who would decide to put an unstaffed fast food place in the middle of a seedy abandoned lot in New York City? 

So if time travel was responsible, the first question was how. Shortly followed by why, and then possibly some running around panicking about accidentally becoming your own grandfather. Not that Myka was the type to run around panicking; in the rare instances she truly did feel desperation she tended to shut down rather than freak out. 

“Hey Myks?” 

“What is it?” Myka was crouched down examining one of the automat’s stoves and didn’t feel like giving Pete her full attention. 

“There’s something you need to see,” he said, and his tone made her shoulders tense warily. 

“More like someone.” 

Myka knew that voice, though it was almost the last one she would have expected to hear just now. She stood slowly and turned around.

H.G. Wells stood in the doorway. 

She smirked at the stunned looks on the agents’ faces, and after a moment of silence had passed she stepped further into the room. “Let it never be said I pass up the opportunity to make an entrance.”

A few more seconds passed, and then Myka found her voice. 

“What are you doing here?” The words came out more harshly than she’d intended. “I mean, it’s just, well…we haven’t heard from you in months, and now…”

“I understand if you’re angry.” 

“I’m not angry,” Myka said, too quickly, “it just seems like too much of a coincidence for you show up on our case like this.”

“What’s a coincidence?” Helena leaned against one of the counters. “The whole situation reeks of time travel, I had to come and see who was able to accomplish what I could not. And anyway, I loved the ‘40s.” 

“You were in the Bronze Sector during the ‘40s,” Myka pointed out.

“Details,” Helena scoffed, “a world war leaving us on the brink of destruction. I went in for that kind of thing in those days.”

Myka knew that all too well. She’d nearly permanently resigned her post as a Warehouse agent because of it. Even now she wasn’t entirely convinced that what had happened back then was not, at least in some part, her fault. 

Helena looked like she was about to say something else, but just then, more people burst through the door. 

_What now?_ Myka thought. They’d taped off the area so they could make their inspection without prying eyes, but it would seem nobody paid attention to simple rules anymore. But then she realized who exactly it was grinning at her from across the room.

“Claudia?”

“The one and only.” The younger agent was moving around scanning things with what looked like another of her inventions. “So what do you think, is it really time travel?”

“Claudia, does Artie know you’re here?” Myka inquired, though she was pretty sure she knew the answer. 

“If he doesn’t now he will soon.” 

That was Steve. Myka turned on him. “I would have expected you of all people to be above this kind of behavior.”

He looked at his feet, abashed. “Yeah, well, someone responsible had to go with Claude to make sure she didn’t wreak too much havoc.”

“And Jinksy here didn’t want to be left out of this fascinating new discovery,” Claudia added, “why should you and Pete have all the fun?” 

“This isn’t just fun, Claude, this is serious stuff.” Pete made his best attempt at a serious face.

“But, consider: I can help you make the _Star Trek_ references.” 

“Deal.” He high-fived her. 

“Is anyone going to explain why H.G. Wells is here?” asked Steve. 

Myka cast her a glance, still not entirely sure herself. 

“Resident time travel expert,” Helena said smoothly. 

In a matter of minutes what was meant to be a simple assessment had quickly become a rather unpleasant situation waiting to happen. Something was bound to go wrong with five Warehouse-affiliated people in one place, and Myka didn’t need Pete’s vibes to know it. 

“Claudia, when I get my hands on you—

“Artie, hey, what a surprise.” 

Correction: make that six Warehouse-affiliated people. She felt a headache coming on. 

“Do you know what this miscreant did?” Artie was fuming. “She stole the Ellis Island Key Ring so she could sneak out of the Warehouse.”

“What’s the Ellis Island Key Thingy?” Pete asked. 

“It’s an Artifact imbued with the longings of thousands of detained immigrants to be able to cross through to the mainland,” explained Artie, “it gives the holder, or holders plural in this case, the power to teleport to New York City.”

Claudia shrugged. “I do my research.” 

“You, young lady, are in big trouble. Bigger trouble than your life has ever seen thus far.”

“What is your deal about time travel anyway?” Claudia burst out, “My brother was trapped in an interdimensional vortex for twelve years, I think I can handle quantum mechanics.” 

“Your brother has nothing to do with this! You can’t just pop off on a mission whenever you feel like it, and you definitely can’t steal an Artifact to help you do it.”

“I didn’t steal it, I was borrowing it.”

“That isn’t the point!”

The argument was only intensifying Myka’s bad feelings, and she barely had to glance at Pete to see that he was experiencing the same thing. There was a slight tingling in her fingertips, which wouldn’t have been remarkable except that it was spreading slowly to the rest of her body. It was like she could feel the molecules in the room vibrating at an increasing velocity. 

“Guys, I think maybe you should stop—

She never got to finish her sentence, because just then there was a blinding flash of light and a violent _thump_ that sent everyone assembled in the automat sprawling to the ground. For a few moments no one dared move, and then Myka slowly got to her feet, dusting herself off.

“Does anyone else get the feeling like—

“—we’ve traveled?” Claudia finished for her, “Yeah.” 

“I’m getting bad vibeage,” Pete declared. 

Artie’s eyes were wide. “Oh, this is bad. This is definitely bad.”

“Everyone, stay calm,” said Myka, “I’m going to look outside and see what’s going on.”

Artie’s alarm intensified. “I wouldn’t do that if I were—

She threw open the doors.

“—you.” 

Outside, the scene had completely transformed, yet it wasn’t unrecognizable to anyone who had read as many history books and seen the number Noir films Myka had. Her heart sunk. The automat hadn’t changed locations. 

It had changed times.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an automat is recovered and many people are confused.

Angie Martinelli was not in a good mood. And if Angie Martinelli was sunny-side down, it meant bad news.

This time, though, things were different. This time, it wasn’t a sexist customer or a rotten day on the job upsetting her. Angie was afraid.

She didn’t scare easy, either. She might not be some kind of fancy secret agent like her roommate (a fact she’d only found out a week or so earlier, because Peggy Carter kept her promises), but she was tougher than she looked. Customer service would do that to a person. 

She tossed her head in irritation. Reflecting on the industry made her think about work, and thinking about work only made her think about why she was afraid. She scowled as she kicked her way down the pavement to Mr. Stark’s house. (Her house, she had to keep reminding herself. Hers and Peggy’s, at least for the moment.)

“English!” she shouted as she came through the doorway, throwing off her shoes, “I need to tell you something.”

The other woman came rushing down the stairs hardly a second later. “Angie, what is it?”

 _Nothing to trouble yourself with_ , she wanted to say, suddenly unwilling to worry her friend, but the concern in Peggy’s eyes somehow managed to draw the truth out of her.

“After I took my break today, when I got back to the automat so I could clock in, it was…gone.”

Whatever Peggy had been expecting, this wasn’t it, but her eyebrows shot up nonetheless. “What do you mean?”

The waitress took a shuddery breath. “I mean _gone_. Vanished into thin air. No trace that anything like it had ever existed.” 

“Angie, if this it is some kind of practical joke—

“It isn’t, Pegs, honest!” Angie was surprised to realize she was close to tears. _It ain’t like me to get so spooked._

When Peggy had revealed her secret identity, Angie had hardly so much as batted an eye, only making some sarcastic comment along the lines of “and _I’m_ the one who calls myself an actress.” If she could handle her best friend being an emissary for a covert agency she still wasn’t allowed to know much about, why was she so shaken up now? 

“I suppose it isn’t _that_ hard to believe,” Peggy said slowly, “I’ve witnessed plenty stranger occurrences than this one.”

Angie had to give her that. Her roommate had seen an ordinary man transform into a supersoldier before her very eyes, been privy to the near-impossibilities of all Howard Stark’s inventions, and even now she refused to talk about some of the weird stuff she came across in the war. In comparison to all that, Angie reassured herself, a disappearing building was nothing. 

“I…I can take you there, if you want,” she offered, “Maybe you can help me figure out what happened.” 

Peggy nodded, grabbing her coat and hat off a hook on the wall. “I can do that.” 

Angie was starting to calm herself down now. She had a trained government agent on her side, after all, and for her own part she could remember the things her mama had taught her about self-defense. Between the two of them they would surely discover the cause of all this. They had to.

\----

Myka closed the door and turned to face the rest of the group, visibly shaken, and Claudia knew what the other woman was going to say before she even opened her mouth. 

“It would seem physical time travel is now off the list of impossibilities.” 

“Let me see.” Pete started for the door, but Myka stopped him. 

“Don’t. We have to be careful. Haven’t you ever heard of the Butterfly Effect?”

“The butter what now?” 

“It’s part of chaos theory,” Artie said, “the flapping of the wings on a tiny butterfly can influence the formation of a hurricane weeks later. But if you go back in time and step on that butterfly—

“History is changed forever,” Myka finished. 

Claudia took a deep breath. “‘There is no problem about changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.’” 

The others stared at her. 

“Douglas Adams, anyone? No? I could go on.” 

Jinksy granted her a less than subtle eye roll. 

“Guess not, then.”

“Oh, this is _fantastic_.” H.G. grinned, breaking the sudden silence. 

“This is not fantastic!” Myka shot, “This is bad. Very bad. We are in the 1940s. The actual 1940s, and we have no idea how we got here, or how we’re leaving, or—

“Myka.” Helena reached out and put a firm hand on her shoulder. “Relax. We’ll figure this out.” 

“Can you please tell me how?”

“I’m still confused as to how we even got here,” Pete said, “I mean I know it must be an Artifact, but what?” 

They looked around the room, all thinking the same thing. _It could be anything._ And if they accidentally set it off again, who knew where they would end up? Claudia spared a quick glance at Artie to see how he was handling the situation, but his face was a stony mask. _Gulp._

Myka let out a slow breath. “Okay. We need a plan.” 

“Agreed.” Helena seemed to register that her hand was still on Myka’s shoulder and retracted it quickly. “Does the Warehouse have any reliable contacts near here in this time period, anyone at all?” 

“Mrs. Frederic,” Claudia said, “she’s been the Caretaker of Warehouse 13 for nearly half a century at this point in time, she’ll know what to do.”

“She won’t even know who we are,” Artie pointed out. 

“Not to mention we have no idea how to find her.” Steve folded his arms. 

“Her grandson,” said Claudia, “he wouldn’t be more than a little kid now, but I did some digging after she took me to meet him last week and I came up with a childhood address in Poughkeepsie.” 

Pete blinked. “So what you’re saying is you stalked Mrs. Frederic’s grandson.” 

“I’m a hacker, not a stalker. I thought, you know, the information might come in handy someday, and, well…”

_Well, I want to know everything I can about the life of a Caretaker outside the Warehouse, because one day that’s it, that’s me. I have to know there’s something out there for me._

Myka was giving her one of those uncanny searching glances that meant she could tell more or less what the younger agent was thinking. 

“We’re lucky you did, Claudia.” 

Claudia gave her a grateful smile. “Looks like I’m full of useful party tricks.” 

“Now we just need to figure out how we’re getting there,” Steve said.

“Wait for a minute, will you?” Artie held up a hand. “We haven’t even decided we’re going yet.” 

The others exchanged a look. 

“It _is_ our only lead…” H.G. began.

Claudia stepped forward. “Artie, I know you’re angry with me, but that’s no excuse to stand there and refuse to help us go after the one piece of information we have.”

He sighed. “Loath as I am to admit it, you’re right. We can’t afford to miss this opportunity.”

“Thank you.”

“But I’m still mad at you!” 

“I can accept that.” Claudia started for the door. 

“What are we going to do about the Artifact?” Myka asked, “Whatever it is, we shouldn’t just leave it here for anyone to stumble across.” 

“Are you planning on moving the whole diner to Poughkeepsie with us?”

Myka rolled her eyes. “No, Pete, I’m saying some of us should stay behind. Helena and I could keep watch here while the rest of you go."

“Oh.” Pete pouted. “It would be cool, though, if we could move the building. And how come you and H.G. Wells are the ones to stay?”

“I think that’s rather obvious,” Helena said, “none of you know more about time travel than me, and I trust Myka more than all of you.”

“No way,” Pete countered, “if Myka’s staying then I’m staying too.” 

“Suit yourself,” H.G. told him, “but the rest of you had better get going.”

She moved to open the door for them when just then it opened and two women stepped through.

“I’m telling you, English, there’s no chance there’s—oh.”

The strangers took in their surroundings, and with hardly a moment’s hesitation, one of them drew her gun. 

“Stop right where you are.” 

\----

The first thing Peggy noticed about Angie’s missing automat was that it was not, in fact, missing. Her friend blinked up at the building, a frown spreading on her face.

“But…it was gone. Earlier today, it was gone, I know it was.”

Peggy’s mind was racing. She really did want to believe her friend, and she could tell Angie’s fear was genuine, but her story didn’t add up to the physical evidence. Not to say she was being false, Peggy would never dare accuse her of that, but something was off here. _I just need to find out what._

“Have you faced any unusual occurrences at work lately?”

Angie shook her head. “Nothing. Unless you count Mr. Stupidface giving me less of a hard time than usual.” 

“Anything’s possible.” Peggy inspected the building’s exterior. It looked the same as it always had, although she’d have to confirm that with Angie, who for obvious reasons knew the place better. She was about to do just that when a flash of movement from behind the window caught her eye. 

“Did you just see that?”

“What?”

Peggy glanced through the dim window again, but all was still. “I thought I saw…is it possible anyone else could have gotten in since the time you left for your break?”

Angie hesitated, then shook her head. “I don’t think so. I was covering Pearson's shift today and he always has to come in early from lunch to unlock the place.” 

“Do you have the key on you now?”

Slowly the waitress drew it out of her pocket and handed it over. “You don’t really think anyone got in there, do you?”

Peggy shrugged. “It isn’t unlikely. Someone—or some _thing_ has to be responsible for today’s strange events.” 

She slipped the key into the lock, noting as she did so that it had been tampered with. A sense of foreboding crept into her stomach. Slowly she pushed the door open.

“I’m telling you, English, there’s no chance there’s—

Angie stopped mid-sentence as she took in the scene in front of her. Clustered around the counter was a group of outlandishly dressed strangers, expressions of panic and guilt frozen to their faces. 

“Oh.”

Peggy took half a second to assess the situation before pulling her gun, aiming it at the one closest to the door. “Stop right where you are.”


End file.
